Even with the explosion of wireless technology the best performance option for both audio and video in your entertainment system is with good old copper wiring. At Wired 1 Consulting we will not wire a home system with less than 14 gauge FT4 rated copper stranded speaker wire. The reason for this is simple; it sounds better. The length of the wire, the thickness and purity of the copper directly affects what your speaker sounds like!
Use the wire designed for the job!
In a lot of home systems these wires can be long runs, that will have both resistive loss, but more importantly, capacitive loss. Resistive loss can be battled by simply turning up the volume, but there’s nothing you can do about capacitive loss. Capacitive loss is the loss of low frequency content (bass, you like bass don’t you?) as a wire gets longer. The only thing you can do to help combat this loss is to use wires of good copper purity and of a decent thickness. A very rough analogy is to think of boosting your car battery: if the cables used for the boost aren’t thick enough the car won’t start! The larger the wire the more current can be carried by the wire. Unfortunately I frequently see homes wired with cables that would be suitable for a door bell, but absolutely unsuitable for decent audio performance of an speaker. This wiring is usually done by trades that don’t know, and don’t care to know, anything about sound quality or the requirements needed to assure the best performance of your audio/video system! Their expertise is NOT low voltage electronics home wiring! The wiring in your home is there for the duration, so, do it right from the start and get your home system wired by a company whose business is quality home electronics wiring and design. It breaks my heart to see beautiful, very expensive, custom built homes wired with garbage wire! It reminds me of the days when houses were wired with aluminum wire, why? Because copper was a little more expensive…
Wired 1 Consulting (506)470-7510